It has been a long and often arduous journey for the car carrier sector over the last ten years. However, following a very challenging 2016, last year saw a return to more positive trends in global seaborne car trade, and volumes look set to have expanded steadily in 2018 too. Nevertheless, following gradual market improvements this year, building demand side risks may represent hazards on the road ahead.

Shipping analysts spend plenty of time assessing the merits of the capacity in the fleet and the volume of seaborne trade. However, there’s another important aspect of the shipping industry which also tells us something important about market activity. Ports and port calls are the joints that hold the trade network together, the origins and destinations of cargoes and the key locations for the ships that carry them.

Seaborne LNG trade is playing an increasingly significant role in the internationalisation of the natural gas marketplace, a process with many facets including the changing global energy mix, LNG infrastructure projects and technology such as shale gas, FLNG, and FSRU. This week’s Analysis focuses on the key trends, which are covered in more detail in the recently published LNG Trade & Transport 2018.

Global seaborne trade has nearly doubled since the turn of the century and in the consensus view, looks likely to continue on an upwards path in the long term. One important element of this trend is rising per capita trade as the world becomes wealthier. But where, exactly, might further per capita seaborne trade growth come from? The concept of an economic ‘tipping point’ and a few examples can be helpful here.

Across the spectrum of seaborne trade, crude oil and containers could hardly be more different. The former is the classic raw material commodity, whilst the latter represents the shipping of all sorts of manufactured end products. Yet in 2017, total seaborne trade in each stood less than 170 million tonnes apart, with a combined volume of 3.8 billion tonnes accounting for 33% of overall global seaborne trade.

Sometimes in shipping, as in life, things come along that nobody really expects. US shale/tight oil production, which was barely on the radar ten years ago, seems to be one of those things. The most recent news, of US crude being unloaded in the Middle East and of output passing 1970s levels, has not come entirely out of the blue. But imagine saying ten years ago that the USA could soon be a net oil exporter…

The festive season is coming closer, and for many of us the time to get the seasonal shopping done is running out. For the containership sector, however, the peak shipping season was back in the summer, giving us a chance to reflect already on how consumer and manufacturing trends have left box shipping looking back on a busy year in terms of volumes.